Bureaucratic blunders

Well! We had quite a day yesterday. Mid-morning we were told good news: that Beth's citizenship document was ready to pick up. This was followed by confusion: we were told Beth had to surrender her British passport and the man in charge seemed to know nothing about special exceptions for dual citizenship. This was followed, half an hour or so later, by bad news: the woman who had originally suggested citizenship instead of permanent residency said there was never any question of dual citizenship and that Sergey must have misunderstood (despite repeated queries he made and himhaving specifically stated dual citizenship on the forms he submitted!)... We were shocked, distressed and concluded that somewhere along the line someone had been misinformed and the blame was passed to us.

What ever next? Well, we return to plan A: permanent residency, which we would have had in January if dual citizenship had not been suggested! On the positive side, we have all the documents ready for this, so it shouldonly take a couple of weeks. On the negative side, in order to apply we need roughly 7000GBP in Beth's bank account... a sum we had in January due to reorganisation in the finance of the business, but which is now once again tied up. However, we only need the money to be in the account for a couple of days and the church has already kindly promised to lend us a large chunk of it (all the church's savings). Andrey will also free up as much as possible from the business and borrow any he can from his business associates (a common practice here). All in all, we have high hopes of getting the money together and applying this coming week. Unfortunately, transferring money from the UK is not an option because of the losses in bank fees and currency conversion both ways.

Once Beth's permanent residency application has been submitted, she will be free to travel to the UK - she will simply be given an exit-entry visa and when she returns in the New Year she will pick up her identity card. However, the fact that Beth cannot now travel through Russia without a visa will mean we have to travel separately to the UK once again! Beth will travel with Lex, and Sergey will hopefully follow a little later, via friends in Germany. Watch this space for departure dates and travel itinerary!

Please pray on for us and praise God for:

• His continual provision of everything we need and much more
• The understanding and generosity of the church
• The prospect of a speedy return to the UK